Freedom Force
by Gambit14
Summary: After the end of Xmen Evolution, Lance, Blob, Toad, and Pietro end up working for SHIELD. What happened to Magneto? And what will happen next? Read to find out!Chapter Two up! The surprise comes at the end. And remember, reviews are appreciated.
1. Chapter 1

They had come, the brave four, to keep Sabretooth from escaping. At the moment, Sabretooth was running through the woods. He wasn't running in fear, far from it. He was relishing the hunt.

There was a black and silver blur, and a heavy stick cracked across the back of his skull. In an instant, he threw out his arm to the side, striking Pietro, who had taken an instant too long to turn around, and had given Sabretooth a chance to act, in the neck. Pietro fell to the ground with a gasping gurgle, and Sabretooth whirled to face him, drawing back his arm to strike again.

Toad hit him next, dropping out of the trees and placing a kick solidly to his spine. Sabretooth stumbled forward a few steps, but he turned swiftly, caught Toad by the throat, and hurled him against a tree. Toad fell with a sickening crack.

The ground started shaking. One tree fell directly at Sabretooth. He caught it, and, with extreme effort, pushed it backwards. Other trees began falling, conveniently missing the two fallen mutants. Then something huge started crashing through the underbrush, felling trees as it came.

"Stop there, Blob," said Sabretooth, grabbing Toad by the back of the neck. "And the same goes for you, Alvers!" He shouted, "Or I rip Frog Boy's spine out through his gut!"

Blob stopped. Sabretooth laughed, and slammed his fist into the side of Toad's head. There was another crack. He threw Toad at Blob and began running again. He stopped at the edge of a high cliff.

The ground started to shake again, as Avalanche stepped out of the trees. Sabretooth snarled and leapt at him. Avalanche raised his arms, and a wave of earth rose up and hit Sabretooth. He twisted in the air and landed on his feet.

"You hurt my team," he said quietly, as Blob, carrying Toad and Pietro, stepped out of the trees. "No one hurts my team."

He raised his hands, and the ground underneath Sabretooth's feet He started running forward, but was unable to get a foothold, and fell, landing in the trees below. Above them a helicopter blade started beating. Holding on to a ladder, Nick Fury, a cigar in his mouth, descended.

He appraised the situation in a quick glance and grimaced. Avalanche flinched slightly under Fury's obvious disapproval, but quickly straightened to military attention. "Sorry, sir," he said, "He got away again. Toad and Pietro are hurt, Toad worse."

Fury stood motionless for a moment, and finally nodded curtly. "Get them onboard then." He snapped. He quickly climbed back up the sturdy ladder, followed by Avalanche, and then Blob, now carrying both fallen teammates in one arm. The ladder swayed under Blob's weight, but held.

The helicopter brought them to a nearby SHIELD base, where Toad and Pietro were rushed into the sickbay, while Fury debriefed Avalanche.

"Whoever told you that Sabretooth was hiding out in that cabin was right, as far as it went," said Avalanche.

"As far as it went?" Fury asked, while lighting another cigar. He stared at Avalanche, clearly trying to decide whether to accept that there had been some flaw in the intelligence, or to blame the entire failure of the mission on Avalanche.

"He knew we were coming," said Lance, obviously upset. "By the time we got there, he wasn't in the cabin anymore."

"Have you stopped to consider that maybe he was just out for a stroll through the woods," asked Fury sarcastically. Lance grimaced and shook his head.

"Of course I considered that," he said, "And I would have gone right on considering it, if not for the fact that he had disemboweled a deer, and painted 'Come Get Me, SHIELD,' on the wall in its blood."

Fury paused for a moment and then nodded. "So," he said, "You arrived at the cabin, and saw the message. What then?"

"Pietro left to locate Sabretooth. Toad followed him, with myself and Blob behind. Pietro was only supposed to find Sabretooth, not engage him."

"But he did," said Fury flatly. He was even more alert now than he had been when he had began the debriefing, and not without reason. Up until that point, the mission had been progressing more or less as well as could be expected. "Why?"

Lance sighed. "Pietro, when he's running, thinks that he's untouchable. I haven't had a chance to talk to him yet, but odds are he never even thought of Sabretooth as a threat."

"Which was a mistake," said Fury. Again, there was no question to his tone. "So Quicksilver was down. I assume that Toad also wasn't supposed to engage Sabretooth on his own. So why did he?"

"I haven't had a chance to talk to him, either," said Lance. "But I know Sabretooth. If Pietro was down, Sabretooth was probably going to finish him off. Toad tried to stop him, and Sabretooth beat him for his troubles. Then Blob and I attacked. Unfortunately, he used Toad as a shield, and was able to escape temporarily. I followed him, with Blob, carrying the others, a short distance behind me. We cornered Sabretooth on a cliff. When I tried to disable him, the cliff gave away."

Fury nodded. "Dismissed, Alvers." He said. Alvers turned and walked out. Fury thought for a moment, and then picked up the phone and pressed a single button. "This is Fury. What's the status of Project Resurrection?" He listened for a moment, and then nodded. "Okay! You have permission to progress. But I want to be there for the final phase!"

He slammed down the throne, took the cigar out of his mouth, and rubbed it out in the ashtray in front of him.

Lance, meanwhile, upon leaving Fury's office, had headed towards the medical wing. When he reached it, he found Blob sitting outside.

"They said they'll be all right." Blob explained, "But they need to rest." Lance nodded, but walked in anyways. He was intercepted by a doctor armed with a stethoscope and a clipboard.

"You can't come in here!" He exclaimed, staring at Lance's uniform, "You'll contaminate-"

"Relax," said Lance, "I just want to know how my team's doing." He looked the man in the eyes, as if daring him to say that that wasn't possible. The man held Lance's glare for a moment, and then sighed and dropped his gaze to the clipboard.

"Agent Quicksilver sustained a blow to the throat. He is currently unconscious, and required a few moments of respiratory assistance, but is expected to make a full recovery. Agent Toad sustained a dislocated shoulder and a pulled muscle. He should also be fine. Now will you get out of here and let us work?" He made shooing motions with the clipboard and Lance left. He nodded to Blob, who followed him back to the barracks.

Above the door, Barracks 24 had been painted out, and the words Freedom Force painted above. Lance casually strode in, took his helmet off and set it on the table, and ran a hand through his hair. He glanced about the barracks.

It was a cross between a military shelter, and a house inhabited by four teenaged males. There were eight bunks on two walls, although there was also a hammock hung from the ceiling. On the walls were several posters of women in various states of disatire. Scattered about the floor were various articles of dirty clothing.

The barracks held several large tables. One of these had been reserved for eating. Another was covered by various text books and sheets of notepaper, material for Lance's continuing studies, in a hope to get his GED. Yet another held a number of parts from a Jeep, a good number of them partly or completely disassembled.

There was also a small kitchen, for which Fred Dukes, the Blob, immediately headed. Lance started to roll his eyes, but stopped when he realized that, in addition to several ingredients from the small fridge, Fred was also taking out a number of pots and pans. He had been showing an interest in cooking recently, so Lance just sat down at the table covered with study material, and opened a textbook, more or less at random.

Scott Summers walked in the garden, pushing Xavier's wheelchair before him. Next to him walked Jean Grey. "You said something was worrying you?" Xavier asked, calmly.

Scott nodded. "Right after the thing with Apocalypse, Magneto took the Brotherhood and headed off to who knows where. Kitty still got e-mails from Lance, occasionally, I know that, but about three months ago, that stopped. Since then, we haven't heard a peep from Magneto, the Brotherhood, nothing."

"And you're worried that something's happened to Magneto?" Asked Jean, puzzled. "I mean, he's not exactly a helpless bystander."

"No, as far as I'm concerned, if something happened to Magneto, he deserved it," said Scott bitterly.

"Scott," began Xavier, "The whole point of what I am trying to accomplish with the Institute and the X-men."

"I know, professor, and I'm sorry. But let me finish. What I'm worried about isn't that something happened to Magneto. What I'm worried about, is that Magneto is going to happen to something. Or someone. Namely us."

Xavier sighed. "I agree, Magento's absence is a cause for concern. But as of yet, there's not anything we can do about it. I have scanned for both Magneto and the members of the Brotherhood repeatedly. I have been unable to find any of them, although I did receive a faint resonance that resembles the mental patterns of the Scarlet Witch from Tibet."

Scott sighed. "All right. We'll keep upgrading the security procedures, but…"

Xavier nodded gravely. "The next move is Magneto's."

Pyro stood a little distance from the fence, absently flicking a lighter open and shut. The guard ran towards him, shouting, "Put your hands up."

Pyro raised his hands, still holding the lighter. "Hail Hydra!" He shouted. The guard paused for a moment, which was all Pyro needed, or wanted. The flame from the lighter leapt out, doubling and redoubling as it surrounded the guard. He screamed in agony. A few seconds later, alarms began going off.

The fireball left the guard's corpse and flew through a fence, melting part of it away as it went. It struck the base, but instead of exploding, it reached at the base, pushing its way in through doors, and cracks in the concrete. Once inside the base, it continued increasing, burning away anything flammable in the base as it swept the halls. It reached the vehicle bay of the base, setting off ammunition and gas tanks until it created several other fireballs. The whole time, Pyro just sat against the base of a tree and laughed as he directed the destruction. This job wasn't half bad after all.


	2. Chapter 2

Quicksilver zipped into the barracks. Lance was lying on one of the bunks reading a textbook, while Blob was in the kitchen, cooking something in a large pan. Lance sat up as soon as Quicksilver ran in, just avoiding banging his head on the bunk above him.

"I'm free!" Shouted Quicksilver, doing an odd little dance at near superspeed. "Free at last from that cruel prison of doctors and sterility. I declare, had I been in there any longer, I don't know how I would have maintained my sanity!"

"Sanity?" Asked Lance dryly, setting his book on the table with the rest of them. "Pietro, I hate to be the one to point this out, but you worrying about losing your sanity makes about as much sense as a blind man worrying about bright lights."

Pietro stopped, dancing, and clutched his hand to his chest. "Oh! Your razor sharp wit wounds me deeply, fearless leader. Already my lifeblood seeps out onto the floor." He staggered back and collapsed onto a bunk, and lay still for all of about two seconds, before leaping back onto his feet and rushing to the kitchen. "What're you cooking, Freddy?" He asked, peering into the pan.

"Pancakes," replied Fred, casually picking Pietro up and setting him out of the way before turning back to cooking.

"How's Toad doing?" Lance asked as Fred, trying to flip a pancake, accidentally stuck it to the ceiling.

"Oh, Todd?" Asked Pietro, staring up at the pancake directly above his head, "He's doing well. He's snoozing a little at the moment, but by the time he wakes up, he should just be a little sore."

He moved at superspeed, grabbing a plate and catching the pancake as it fell, and then covering it in maple syrup. "Mmm. Delicious, Freddy. Who knew you could make food as well as you eat it?" A few seconds later he was done, and laid down on his bunk. Moments after that, the intercom flickered to life.

"This is Nick Fury!" It proudly announced. "Get your goldbricking es over to the briefing room pronto! Time to earn your keep!" Lance sighed, and, picking his helmet up, led Blob and Pietro to the briefing room.

Fury was waiting for them. "About time!" He snapped as they walked in. "There's a situation I need you to handle." A picture of a man walking down a street appeared on the screen. "This is Aleksei Sytsevich. Up until this morning he was a small-fry mafia enforcer. However, approximately ten hours ago, he, along with at least ten other Mafia enforcers assaulted a SHIELD armored transport truck. The SHIELD transport was unarmed, and manned by only two SHIELD officers, in security guard uniforms, in an attempt to prevent any suspicion about it's route. What we weren't counting on was a Mafia hit, assuming it was transporting valuables."

"What was it transporting, then?" Lance asked, leaning forward and studying the man. Fury grimaced and the slide changed. It now showed a man wearing a large grey skintight suit, with two horns on the head.

"This is Project Rhino," explained Fury. "It grants the wearer enhanced strength, speed, and exceptional endurance. As of our latest intelligence, Sytsevich has donned the suit. We lost track of him after that, but there was a report of a huge man with a horn on his head wrecking a bar in Hell's Kitchen. Your job is to find and disable him. Unfortunately, there's no time for you to review the in-depth report on the suit. We're on a ticking clock here. The suit's still in the experimental stage, and the eggheads in R&D tell me that if he wears the suit for more than twenty hours it may become permanently bonded to his skin."

"Which would be bad?" Asked Lance.

"Very." Replied Fury. "Now, transport's waiting for you, so get moving!"

There was no flaw in the intelligence this time. By the time they got to the bar, the police had cordoned off the immediate area. As they strode up to the police line, most of the police heavily armed and wearing full riot gear, they were intercepted by an officer.

"Sorry, lads," he said, "You can't go in there. There's a confirmed superhuman threat in there."

"I know," said Lance, pulling out a SHIELD I.D. card. "We're here to handle him." The cop glanced at him skeptically, took the card, and examined it closely. Finally, he handed it back.

"Fine. Best of luck, boys. We haven't had any, that's for sure. As far as we know, he's the only one left in there." He waved them through the line. As they approached the bars, the sounds of destruction grew steadily louder.

"You know," said Lance as they headed towards ground zero, "I'm never going to get used to being able to do that."

When they reached the bar, Lance spoke in a barely audible- especially considering the insistent crashes from inside Mo's Bar- undertone saying "Blob, take point. Pietro, you're with me."

Blob grinned and charged forward, through the door of the bar. Literally, he charged through the door, taking a not inconsiderable part of the surrounding wall out with him. Inside, Aleksei was steadily demolishing the bar. Bits of tables were strewn about more or less randomly, and he was working on smashing the bar itself into firewood.

He turned to face Blob immediately. "You are a fed?" He asked. Blob nodded. "Then I will make you an offer. You walk away from here, and nobody has to get hurt. Only property damage, no? And I see you are not above that yourself."

"Can't do that," said Lance, following Blob through the hole in the wall. "How's this for an offer instead, take the suit off, and we take you in peacefully?"

Aleksei shook his head, horns and all. "Nyet. I have a wife and child to support. How do I do this from jail?"

Lance nodded, briskly. "Blob? He's all yours." Blob charged the Rhino, backhanding him, and sending him flying through the wall of the bar to the alley behind it. As he began trying to stand up, Pietro rushed up to him, and began pummeling him with both hands. Aleksei, ignoring the battering, climbed to his feet, and charged at Lance. Lance raised his hand, and the ground under Aleksei reared up, throwing Aleksei back off his feet, and into a wall.

A substantial chunk of debris fell from higher up on the wall. Meanwhile, Pietro spotted a young girl who had apparently been missed by the police as they cleared out the area. By some strange laws of probability that affected any superhumans who did battle in populated areas, she was standing in the middle of the sidewalk, talking sternly to a doll, and was directly under the falling rubble.

Pietro ran full out, snatching the girl out of the way, and depositing her next to the police, before returning to the scene of the fight. Aleksei had regained his feet again, and was grappling with Blob. Neither of them had the immediate advantage, and Lance couldn't take away Aleksei's solid footing without doing the same to Blob. Slowly, Aleksei forced Blob's arms down. Then, with a movement amazingly swift for his bulk, especially considering the bulk of the suit, he put his hands around Blob's throats and began squeezing. Blob coughed, and grabbed Aleksei's arms, trying to force them away from his throat. Pietro suddenly realized his knuckles were bleeding heavily from his earlier attack on Aleksei, and decided to try a different tact. He ran back into the bar, grabbed a table leg, and ran back out.

He had noticed earlier that the only part of Aleksei's face that wasn't covered by the suit was his face. This had seemed a rather major design flaw to him, and one that he intended to exploit.

"Knock him off his feet, Lance!" Pietro shouted. Lance, partly responding on instinct to Pietro, partly because Blob was now obviously struggling for air, and was starting to turn purple in the face, did so. Both lost their footing, although Blob brought a substantial piece of concrete with him. Pietro rushed towards Aleksei, as the latter tried to regain his footing, and smashed the table leg across his unarmored face. Aleksei continued to try to climb to his feet, but was still unable to, mostly due to Pietro breaking his nose with the table leg. He tried, once again, but was again unable to climb to his feet before Pietro knocked him unconscious with one final swing of the table leg.

He collapsed on the pavement, as Blob climbed to his feet, gulping air. Lance pulled out his SHIELD radio, speaking into it and saying "Aleksei's down. We need a pickup."

A few minutes later, a SHIELD helicopter descended onto the street. With the help of Blob, Aleksei was loaded onto it. Lance and Pietro followed them aboard.

Fury was not happy. "More than five hundred thousand dollars property damage!" He roared, "Not to mention a quarter of New York City without power or running water for twelve hours! Do you have any idea what happens when you use your powers like that in an urban environment?" He demanded of Lance.

"No, sir. That's not something that ever came up as a large issue in Bayville."

"Of course not," growled Fury, "You never had to deal with the side effects of your actions when you worked for Magneto. But you're an agent of SHIELD now, and you need to think before you act," he paused. "That goes for all of you! Seems to me you need someone with experience. Someone who knows what the hell they're doing."

"Sir," said Lance, his voice suddenly hard. "We joined SHIELD on two conditions, remember? One, we got to keep looking for Mangeto. Two, I remained in charge of the team."

"Fine," spat Fury. "You need a trainer and advisor. How's that?" He grinned, suddenly, "And I have just the man for the job."

The man who walked through the door an instant later was tall, and he was blond. More strikingly, he was wearing a uniform designed to resemble an American flag, and he was carrying a similarly themed shield.

"Captain America, meet Freedom Force, your new team."


End file.
